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3 



IMPERIALISM 



WILLIAM M. SALTER 



A L,ecture before t 




ture of Chicago, in Steiuway 
Xr2yi899. 



(REPRINTED FROM UNITY) 



CHICAGO 

AI.FRED C. CIvARK & CO. 

12 Sherman Street 



FROM ANTI-!MP»:PJALIST LfcAv-w ., 



Imperialism. 



.-1 Lecture by Wm. M. Salter, before the Society for 
Ethical Culture of Chicago, in Steimvay 
Mi Hall, February 12, iSgg. 
«5 

Three great issues have been before the American 
people within the last twelve months. The first was 
whether this nation should put an end to Spanish 
oppression in Cuba and set the island free. The sec- 
ond w^as whether, having broken the Spanish power 
in the Philippines, the nation should thereafter return 
the islands to Spain or turn them over to some other 
Power or leave them to themselves, in any case wash- 
ing its own hands of them ; or whether it should as- 
sume some manner of responsibility for them. The 
third issue is now before us. We have freed Cuba ; we 
have accepted responsibility for the Philippines — and 
the question now is, how shall we discharge that re- 
sponsibility, in what spirit shall we act, do we really 
wish to own the Philippines or do we wish to make 
them free? 

Each one of these issues has tried, or is trying, 
keenly the temper of the people. Some thought in 
the first place that Cuba was no concern of ours — ab- 
horred the war altogether. Later, many believed that 
we should do anything rather than charge ourselves 
with the Philippines — some, like Prof. Norton, even 
advocating leaving them to Spain. But the main 
body of the people was moved in both instances by 



humaner, more generous thoughts. The nation has 
acted on the assumption that we were our brother's 
keeper — and even to islands in distant seas we have 
stretched out the friendly hand. The nation has as- 
sumed responsibility and has even agreed to pay Spain 
$20,000,000 for a quit-claim deed to the islands. From 
a legal point of view the Philippines are in our hands. 

And now an issue has arisen that entirely over- 
shadows the earlier ones. It has not stood out clearly 
till now. When men have urged keeping control of 
the Philippines, they have been called Imperialists, or 
in any case Expansionists. But it may be that they 
were, and it may be they were not. It is possible to 
approve of both the war and the Paris treaty, and yet 
to be oposed to imperialism or expansion. Im- 
perialism now first has a distinct signification — I 
mean, as related to a practical issue. Imperialism 
was not the issue a year ago ; it was not the issue when 
the treaty was signed in Paris. Now it is the issue — 
do we believe in forcible expansion or not ? For that 
is the meaning of imperialism, and that is the ques- 
tion now confronting the American people. 

The events of the past week have been simply 
shocking ; they have been humiliating to anyone who 
loved old-fashioned American ideas. But they have 
only brought home to everybody what the thoughtful 
and discerning already knew. This is that the Philip- 
pinos want freedom, just as the Cubans did, and the 
question is, have we broken the Spanish power over 
them to set them free, or to give them a new master? 
A people that does not care for freedom is perhaps 
not worth freeing, but the Philippinos have cared 
enough for freedom to make several unaided at- 
tempts at it during the century. Twelve times, de- 
spairing of a peaceful redress of grievances, they have 
risen in insurrection. They are naturally peaceful ; 
according to General Merritt they are not natural and 
pertinacious fighters, like our Indians, but docile and 
amiable. Far away as they have been, we have known 
©r heard little of them, but of the last revolutionary 



uprising in 1896 we have distinct information. It had 
six separate objects : 

(i) The expulsion of the monastic orders, who, 
even CathoHc authorities admit, practiced fearful 
abuses. 

(2) The abolition of the Governor General's arbi- 
trary power to banish without accusation, trial or sen- 
tence. 

(3) Restoration to the natives of lands held by the 
religious orders. 

(4) A limitation of the arbitrary powers of the 
civil guard. 

(5) No arrest without judge's warrant. 

(6) Abolition of the fifteen days per annum com- 
pulsory labor. 

These were hardly the demands of savages, either in 
moral or mind. The Philippinos arc evidently hu- 
man beings, in some respects not unlike ourselves. 
Indeed, while the bulk of them [I have in mind, par- 
ticularly, Luzon, where are five out of of the seven or 
eight million, making up the population of the 
islands] are uneducated and half-civilized, they have 
some of the marks of a superior people. They wish 
education. They are cleanly, are hospitable and oblig- 
ing. They have a pleasing family life. Wives have 
an amount of liberty hardly equaled in any other 
Eastern country, and they seldom abuse it. The men 
are self-respecting and self-restrained to a remarkable 
degree. The climate allows them to be indolent, yet 
they possess many fine branches of industry (making 
beautiful mats and elegant linen fabrics), and they imi- 
tate such branches of European industry as ship- 
building, leather dressing and carriage building, with 
great success. With their patriarchal system of liv- 
ing, they have not learned the art of forming a state 
and are commonly supposed to be destitute of the 
capacity of governing themselves ; yet the stress of 
circumstances has developed leaders among them and 
during the past year an attempt has been made to 
organize a government. For three centuries they 



have been subject to Spanish rule, and it is absurd to 
deny the existence of capacities that have not been 
allowed to grow. What their capabilities are is shown 
in the nature and personnel and working of the extem- 
pore government they now have and which makes so 
much a part of the gravity of the present situation that 
I must give a few details. 

Its seat is in Malolos, forty miles from Manila. 
There the Philippine Congress sits in an old Spanish 
church. It had eighty-three members when it declared 
the republic on the i6th of September last; more have 
since been added. Of these eighty-three, seventeen 
were graduates of European universities. The Presi- 
dent studied at Madrid and Salamanca, taking degrees 
in theology and law, and is an author, his works on the 
life and manners of the inhabitants of Luzon having 
been translated into German. The head proper of the 
government is a man who had been, under Spanish 
rule, a petty governor of his native town, a landed 
proprietor and by no means an adventurer with all to 
gain and nothing to lose — Aguinaldo. Aguinaldo was 
the leader of the insurection of 1896, and yet when the 
Spanish government agreed to make concessions and 
to pay the wages of the insurgent troops, he counseled 
peace and his counsel prevailed. (I may add that the 
insurgents disbanded and kept their agreement to the 
letter, while the Spanish government did nothing in the 
way of reforms and only paid a third of the money 
promised, and that the payment of this to Aguinaldo, 
the recognized representative of the insurgents^^ con- 
stitutes the only basis I have been able to discover 
for the charge which our papers are making that he 
was a blackmailer and a bandit.) According to a writer 
in the Reviczv of Reviews, who knew him. "friends 
and enemies agree that he is intelligent, ambitious, far- 
sighted, brave, self-controlled, honest, moral, vindictive 
and at times cruel." His cruelty has been kept well in 
check, however, during the past vear, for all accounts 
agree that he has been temperate in the use of his 

*See Review 0/ Rei'iew's, Feb., 1890, p. 168. 



power and that his soldiers have treated their Span- 
ish prisoners more humanely than the Spaniards used 
to treat the Philipinos who fell into their hands. His 
extraordinary ability as a military organizer are com- 
monly admitted. Encouraged in part by our own rep- 
resentatives, he came from Hong Kong (where he had 
been since the insurrection of 1896) to Luzon, organ- 
ized a native revolutionary army, was of incalculable 
advantage to our own military forces, captured some- 
thing like 15,000 Spaniards, raised large sums of 
money ranging as high as $200,000 a month, and un- 
der his leadership the Spanish dorninion was prac- 
tically confined to two towns, Manila in Luzon and 
Iloilo in Panay, Iloilo itself being afterward surren- 
dered by the Spanish to him. The fact is that up to 
last Sunday American authority hardly extended be- 
yond the walls of Manila City, the whole of the rest of 
Luzon, as well as some of the other islands being in the 
hands of the native government. This government 
sent an embassy to the Paris Peace Conference, setting 
forth that it embraced fifteen provinces and that in all 
of them good order and tranquility prevailed. An 
acknowledged authority on the Philippines, long a resi- 
dent there, writes in a recent review that he has before 
him a list of the township presidents throughout Luzon, 
many of whom he has personally known for years.* 
Since the government has obtained possession of Iloilo, 
law and order has equally prevailed there, according 
to the testimony of our own observers. The Philip- 
pine government sent a representative to Washington, 
whom our government refused to receive, though per- 
sonally, and as he has conducted himself, no one has 
taken exception to him. But a short time since the 
Congress at Malolos passed a fresh vote of confidence 
in Aguinaldo and empowered him to declare war on 
America whenever he should deem it desirable. Grant 
that this government may not be an ideal government, 
grant that it may not act wisely, grant that it does not 
represent the whole people of the Philippines but only 

♦John Foreman, National Review. Nov., '98, p. 398. 



the more enterprising and progressive classes, none the 
less it is something, and I should think any lover of 
freedom, any old-fashioned American, would welcome 
it as a beginning and as prophetic of greater things 
that may some time come. 

I started out by saying that the Philippinos wanted 
freedom and I have stated all these things to show 
what manner of people they were. And now the ques- 
tion is, Spain having transferred to us whatever title 
to the islands she possessed (and I am not sorry for 
it), no other nation having the right to interfere, what 
shall we do? Shall we proceed to enforce our title 
after the Spanish fashion, or shall we respect the in- 
stincts and aspirations for freedom of those dusky 
tribes, do all in our power to help perfect the inde- 
pendent political institutions that are already in their 
infancy, and defend them against any possible assault 
from without? It will not do to say that the Philip- 
pines are ours in the sense in which the territory be- 
tween the Atlantic and the Pacific is ours. All we have 
is a quitclaim deed to them from Spain. We have 
whatever title Spain had. But what in the light of 
American ideas was that title worth ? There is an old 
notion lying at the foundation of our political system 
that government derives its just powers from the con- 
sent of the governed. Without insisting on the literal 
and pedantic interpretation of that notion, its general 
meaning is plain. It is the charter of our liberty, the 
spiritual basis of American institutions. In the name 
of that idea and under it sacred sanction we flung our- 
selves into the Cuban war. Despite all low motives 
that intermingled, there was a note of idealism in our 
first pronouncement. We have not sinned against that 
idea (unless in the war with Mexico) till now ; the con- 
straining motive in our declaration to England about 
Venezuela was of this character — we will not have 
political freedom trenched upon on this continent, that 
was the meaning of it. Are we ready, is the American 
people ready to forget that idea now ? Circumstances 
do alter cases ; does it alter this case, or is it a principle 

8 



of the national life? The Monroe doctrine may be 
abandoned, though I think it has been rather extended 
than abandojied in the recent war (for the root princi- 
ple of it is nothing- else than concern for liberty) ; the 
wise counsels of the fathers, of even great Washington, 
may no longer be applicable ; but is the Declaration of 
Independence simply a counsel or is it rather Amer- 
ica's life blood? For my own part, I am in this case 
a conservative, for when the past is so fortunate as to 
have enunciated a principle, I know nothing else than 
to cling to it. Idealism and consers-atism blend in one. 
Happy is that country that can look back as well as 
forward to something great. Many countries arc glad 
to cover up their beginnings ; think the blessed fates, 
we in America are in luckier stead. 

Now, if the Philippinos wished to become a ]iart 
of us, we should not sin against our great principle 
in incorporating them, however undesirable and po- 
litically inexpedient such a result might be, and the 
ratified treaty would leave the world nothing to say 
against it. We might have cherished this idea at the 
start, we might have thought that any subject people 
would be glad to come under the protection of our 
flag; but apparently we are mistaken, we are waking 
up to see that other peoples, even so-called inferior 
peoples, may have a desire to have their own political 
existence as truly as we did, now a hundred and more 
years ago. We are confronted with a situation in 
which we have a paper title to a people that after all 
does not wish to belong to us. If they were our own 
people as the South was, we might hold them even 
against their consent ; but they are foreigners and out- 
siders to start with. We have absolutely no claim on 
them at all save the quitclaim title which Spain has 
given us, and what, after all, does that title amount to 
in the light of the facts of the past week, save permis- 
sion to make a conquest of them ? We hear much of 
expansion, of inevitable expansion,of the instinct to live 
and grow and expand itself which every great people 



feels. Americans talk in this way as well as English- 
men and I will not deny that there is some truth in it ; 
all I can say is that according to the American idea 
there are rightful limitations to the process and these 
limitations are set in the terms of the Declaration of 
Independence, and if we forget those limitations we 
become no better than the Roman Empire of old, and 
our republic is but a name. These limitations hold 
against a weak people as truly as against a strong one. 
The test of justice is in respecting the weak, and if 
justice is laid low it will lay us low in time. There is 
only one thing stronger than man or the strongest and 
most expansive nation, and that is the immortal laws, 
God. 

This nation has had full warning of the dire events 
that have happened this past week. Ever since Dewey 
entered Manila Bay we could, if we had our ears to 
the ground, hear the murmurs and resolves of cer- 
tain dark-skinned people that they would throw ofif 
a hated oppressor's yoke and would not bow meekly 
to a new master. There has been apparently much 
holding the ears to the ground to know what our peo- 
ple really wanted, but there has not been apparently 
much heeding of what even came over the wires from 
the distant East. We knew or could have known that 
conditions were ripe for a fresh insurrection, we knew 
or could have known that after Dewey's victory it be- 
gan, we ourselves aiding and abetting, and in turn 
profiting by it. We supplied the insurgents with arms 
and ammunition ; through our agent at Hong Kongwe 
encouraged Aguinaldo to go back to Luzon, we even 
allowed them to think that we should favor Philippine 
independence ; they innocently believed that we sympa- 
thized with them, that having set out to free the Cu- 
bans, we could not be indiflferent to their own aspira- 
tions. They did not wish German aid and refused it 
when it was offered to them, but they were willing to be 
beholden to us — we the great liberty-loving power of 
the West. They would not seriously oppose a tempo- 
rary American protectorate. All this appeared in their 

10 



formal statement to the American people, brought to 
this country by Agoncillo in September. Yes, as late 
as two months ago they recognized that such a protec- 
torate would be necessary to them, as otherwise they 
would, with whatever government they might set up 
for themselves, sooner or later become the prey of some 
greedy Power. But gradually they have become skep- 
tical of our intentions. They have been led to suspect 
that we after all want to own their islands, and who will 
deny with some reason? They claim that their ship- 
ping has been interfered with and arms and ammuni- 
tion seized ; they claim their taxes are under the Amer- 
ican authorities increased and old custom house abuses 
continued. Three times they have tried, and tried in 
vain, to secure official recognition, through their rep- 
resentative, from the United States government. The 
United States will not declare what its future intentions 
are. It refuses to say that it will not hold the islands 
permanently. The President talks of "benevolent as- 
similation.'' and when a Senator assuming to speak for 
the administration announces that our duty is to be 
only temporary, there is a disavowal of the statement. 
Everything looks like expansion, peaceful expansion if 
possible, forcible expansion if necessary, but expansion 
in every case. The Philippinos scent imperialism, and 
they are right. Victory has intoxicated this people ; 
the commercial spirit is seducing it. making it forget it- 
self and leave the straight grand path it entered on a 
year ago. In a recent census of the newspapers of the 
country it was found that two-thirds of them were for a 
"forward policy" — and we know what that means. If 
the people move or if powerful interests move our 
Chief Magistrate, pure-minded and just-ininded though 
he is, gives no sign that he will gainsay. To wait to 
know just how to act is legitimate : to wait for prin- 
ciples — what under heaven is that but to confess that 
we have no principles ? Seeing that the nation has no 
mind on this new issue, this all-important, life and 
death issue to themselves, knowing full well that when 
conscience is not alive interests sweep men away, hear- 

II 



ing the ever bolder and bolder expressions of imperial- 
ist policy from our newspapers, magazines and public 
men, and finding that the main problem discussed 
among us is how to get the islands and yet not give the 
people rights, who can wonder that the Philippinos, 
victims of disillusionment, lost their patience and made 
up their minds to strike a blow before it should be for- 
ever too late? For my own part, I have no wonder 
and rather admire, though I pity their ignorance and 
folly. Poor Philippinos ! What are they with their 
scanty equipment, with their pitiful bows and arrows, 
before the army and the navy of the United States ! 
But they will soon learn better — or at least those who 
survive after our gallant attacks ! After the bravest 
are winnowed out we shall no doubt have a docile,' 
obedient population to rule over and "benevolently as- 
similate." 

The responsibility for the disgraceful battles of the 
past week is commonly put on the Senators who op- 
posed the treaty. There never was a more superficial 
opinion. The real responsibility lay with those who 
have refused to say a single clear word to the efifect 
that we had no wish to govern the Philippines with- 
out their consent. One word even from the President 
alone to the effect that we viewed our ofifices as merely 
temporary, that ultimately we hoped the Philippines 
would be free even as Cuba is to be free, would have 
made the Philippinos our friends, would have made 
them not dream of opening hostilities upon us, would 
have made them gladly co-operate with us even as the 
Cubans are beginning to do in that long unhappy isle. 
Unless we are to embark on an imperialist policy, the 
slaughters on either side the past week are the sickliest, 
ghastliest waste that this war or any war has ever 
known. There is no honor for any American who fell 
on the plains near Manila in these engagements ; there 
is no comfort for any desolate American home in the 
thought that the life was offered up for liberty or in any 
holy cause. If it was all waste there surely was 
no honor, and if it was necessary as a first step toward 

12 



imperialism, there was honor only as honor and shame 
are one, only as there can be honor in fighting to en- 
slave men. As holy as was the war for Cuba, so un- 
holy is this war against the Philippines. It is a black 
disgrace to America, it makes me hang my head in 
shame for my country. If I had thought of this out- 
come I would rather have had the Cubans starved and 
rotted out than that this people, with its proud history, 
with its glorious past, should sully itself with such dis- 
honor. I know, of course, there was nothing for our 
soldiers to do but to fire back when they were fired 
upon, and I nowise reflect upon the personal bravery 
they may have shown. They were victims, not causes ; 
but the damnable disgrace of this business is on our- 
selves that we have not known our mind, and on the 
highest in the land that they have not known their 
mind. 

It is high time this country took the bull by the 
horns and decided whether it is for imperialism or 
against imperialism. Everyone who believes in the 
forcible subjection of the Philippines, everyone who 
believes in prosecuting the present w^ar even for a day 
without an explicit declaration on our part that we 
have no designs on the liberty and independence of the 
Philippine people and mean ultimately to do for them 
only what we meant to do for Cuba, is an imperialist. 
He nowise differs from English imperialists, he nowise 
differs from those who went plundering the world (or 
approved of it) under a Roman emperor ; the essence 
of imperialism is disregard of liberty. Those, on the 
other hand, who believe in liberty, who oppose con- 
quest, are the anti-imperialists. It is not a question of 
how much territory we shall have, but of how it shall 
be acquired. It is not a question of favoring war or of 
opposing war, but of what we have to say to a specific 
kind of war. . It is not a question of seeking new mar- 
kets for American trade, or of being content with the 
markets we already have, but of what we are walling 
to do to get new markets. One thing at a time, and the 



nation needs to clearly envisage this question at the 
present moment. 

Already there has been a relaxing of old sentiments. 
Even Mr. Blaine opposed the right of conquest. He in- 
duced the Pan-American Congress to distinctly say 
that the principle of conquest should not be recognized 
as admissable under American public law, and that all 
cessions of territory made under threats of war or the 
pressure of an armed force should be void. I fear that 
there are many who would not find that this expresses 
their sentiments now. President McKinley said in the 
case of Cuba that "forcible annexation cannot be 
thought of," that it would by our code of morals be 
"criminal aggression" ; but how many would say it now 
with reference to the Philippines ? Would our Chief 
Magistrate himself say it? It is not a moment too 
early to face this question and to settle it. It is now 
that we are at a real parting of the ways. Let us main- 
tain our authority it we will in the Philippines, though 
we have only ourselves to thank that we must do this 
at such fearful cost, but let us say without further de- 
lay what our end and object is in asserting our author- 
ity. The whole future development of America turns 
on how we answer this question. If we go on one way, 
we shall simply add America to the list of the Pow- 
ers, of which the world has too many already that are 
unscrupulous foes of the liberty of man, and we shall 
do so without the excuse which old crowded Europe 
may plead for itself, do it in a kind of wantonness and 
speculative fever. And since we shall be learning con- 
tempt of liberty abroad, it will be harder to keep re- 
spect for liberty at home. Little by little individual 
rights, which it has been our glory to defend, will come 
to be regarded as indifferent matters. If on the other 
hand we withstand the temptation, the republic will be 
the stronger for this exercise of moral force, we shall 
continue in at least one respect to set an example to the 
nations, we shall move on further and further along the 
lines of our appointed task, to show how liberty may be 

14 



guarded at home and how it may be protected in the 
great world outside. 

Sometimes ministers say no matter how the prob- 
lem is settled, they believe the nation will prosper. 
They say they believe God has yet a work for America 
to do and that we shall go on as we have gone on. But 
a minister who reads his Bible should know better. 
^ The language reminds me of those in ancient Israel 
who leaned on Jehovah saying, "Is not Jehovah 
in the midst of us ? No evil can come upon us," whom 
Micah rebuked. God, the real God, is not indifferent 
which of two courses we take ; he does not take care of 
us in any case ; only if we take the right are we safe, 
and if we take the other he conducts us to destruction. 

It is a sublime call which comes to the American 
nation to-day. Choose ye whom ye will serve, Mam- 
mon or Liberty and Right. Will you conquer races 
groping upward to freedom and to light, or will you 
make yourselves friends to them, assisting them, stand- 
ing guard over them to prevent aggressions from with- 
out? The London Spectator says that an independent 
Phillippine republic would in ten years be either Eng- 
lish, German or Japanese. That is what we are to pre- 
vent. That is why we cannot withdraw from the China 
Sea and leave the Philippines absolutely to themselves. 
That is why I am glad that we have the sort of title- 
deed that we have. The other nations thereby respect 
us and know that if they interfere they will have some- 
one else to reckon with besides a republic just in its 
swaddling clothes. We should give the Philippines a 
chance. We should not impose upon them our civiliza- 
tion (beyond the mere respect for order, which, in the 
main, indeed, they already have), but let them develop 
their own civilization. The world is not all of one type, 
nor need civilization be a stereoptyped thing. We 
should expect the Malays, under fostering influences, 
to contribute something to the world. Whatever they 
may absorb from contact with outside peoples let them 
absorb, but let them run it into their own moulds ; let 
them add in this way to the variety and wonder and 

15 



richness of the world. I devoutly hope, I would 
earnestly pray did I think there was any use in prayer, 
that America may see where the part of honor and 
glory really lie, and I can at least beseech you, my 
hearers, to weigh this whole matter solemnly in your 
minds, and if you find that you can agree with me, then 
go among your friends and acquaintances and make 
converts to your idea, speak in season and out of sea- 
son, in public and in private about it, for I believe the 
fate of this nation now trembles in the balance and that 
action, right action, alone avails. 



16 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 717 902 7 



